Continuing from our last weeks’ post.
We’re learning that an ‘As‘ gives us the ‘like as‘, ‘likened unto’, or ‘is like‘ in a parable.
So the question now arises, what is the parable providing us? The short answer is that the As provides us with the meaning of the subject matter, or rather the subject matter at hand by a parable. The parable provides us with the meaning of the subject matter, in its fulness of it. What do we mean by the fullness of the parable?
It’s complete and it’s finished; because it has a beginning, a body, and an ending. Which in turn teaches us, what the subject matter at hand actually is by what is learned because of the parable.
Recall last week the three (3) parables we used, an example of the application of ‘As’ that Jesus spoke? Ok, so what is the subject of each of these three parables that Jesus was providing in them? Hint: The subject… is the same … for all three (3).
Answer: if you said, the subject matter at hand is; “the kingdom of heaven”, then your correct. Please give yourself a hand.
But notice what happened after he presented three parables to describe the kingdom of heaven? No one (rather no listener) still did not understand what the kingdom of heaven was. We know that no one got the understanding. Why do we know this? Because the disciples came to him after the multitude had left, and asked Jesus to interpret (*to declare) one of the three parables.
Interesting, right? The Spirit has provided us with a dream to assist in describing what this is like. That is having a parable presented, but still no idea what the subject matter is still all about. Still, lacking an interpretation of the parable, thus lacking the understanding of what is the kingdom of heaven.
The dream took on the hidden meaning of the word “Value”, as is the hidden meaning for the ‘kingdom of heaven’ for the disciples before Jesus provided the interpretation.
I was attending a continuing education class related to the financial industry. Apparently, it seemed I had taken on the body of a financial planner type of businessman and was needing this class to keep up with my license renewal.
The class attendance consisted of 10-15 or so, of other professional financial advisors. Each one was seated in his own desk. When I began to hear the professor’s voice and he was discussing the P&L statement (profit and loss). Then he asked the class; “What word should the P&L statement have in it”? I took this question to heart and began to deeply ponder. But as I thought on it, it seemed confusing, because P&Ls are viewed with a summary of items, ie, a summary of sales/revenue, minus its cost of goods, showing a gross profit and so forth. So, yes, what specific word it should have? Still, a bit puzzled, he asks us again, What Word should a P&L statement have? Then he said, “its the word, Value”.
The word Value must be listed? That didn’t seem to make much sense, because the P&L itself if done properly, will provide the reader, accountant or financial advisor, the value of how a business is doing, without having to place the word into it.
I began to look about the classroom to see if anyone else was just as puzzled as I was. That’s when I noticed, another young financial advisor, who had turned out of his seat and was facing my direction, began to lean over my desk to scan my college paper notebook, to see if he could find if my notes would be of help. So I glance down as well to see. All I saw were a few scattered lower-case, individual letters, written down in my cursive writing. Each spaced about one inch apart and another line of them also separately down the page. So these small scattered letters that probably totaled no more than eight letters, couldn’t create one word.
This young man, still standing, replies to the professor that he didn’t understand what the professor meant by the word, value having to be in a P&L statement. So the professor says to him (gives him an As = is like);
“It’s like trying to find and see a large white whale while it’s swimming in a sea of chocolate milk”.
At first, the young man thought he just received some additional information from the professor that would make sense and he’d have the understanding of the professors’ “value” statement. But as he thought on it, he realized, it was a dark saying, a parable, a metaphor, that needed interpretation. He knew this parable was saying the same thing, for if one looks for the word ‘value’ in a P&L, it’s like trying to found a white whale in chocolate milk. Even though the whale is large and white so should easily been seen and found, however, since the sea is made up of chocolate milk, this would make it too dark to find and see the white whale.
So is the word ‘value’, a word not seen in a P&L unless one knows how to read and interpret a P&L statement. If one knows how to interpret a P&L, then the not seen word, value, is actually provided within the P&L and becomes a great tool for good business decision making to the business owner, or an investor.
*To declare is to interpret the parable: Another reference;
And the thin ears devoured the seven good ears: and I told this (dream) unto the magicians, but there was none that could declare it to me.
~ Genesis 41:24 ~
Say, Son of man
I am your sign